The General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council have issued a guideline titled “Opinions on Improving the Natural Resource Asset Management System.” The document is positioned as a programmatic guideline in the field of natural resource asset management, aimed at building a framework for unified performance of the responsibilities as owner of all natural resource assets owned by the whole people.
Guo Zhijing, a researcher at the China Green Development Research Institute, said the guideline clarifies that improving the rights system, including usufructuary rights in natural resource assets, is a key part of property rights system reform. It sets out tasks such as promoting separation of ownership and use rights, and defining corresponding rights content and exercise methods. He noted that under the overall framework, it is necessary to further improve the natural resource asset rights system, establish a rights system based on land rights, and refine rights systems for specific types of natural resources, in order to achieve value preservation and effective utilization. The overall goal is to innovate forms of ownership realization, making rights attribution clearer, powers more complete, and transfers smoother.
The Ministry of Natural Resources in recent years has carried out unified survey and monitoring covering land, minerals, forests, grasslands, wetlands, water, oceans, deserts, and spaces such as national parks. Surveys show that a “three-in-one” protection framework for farmland quantity, quality, and ecology has gradually taken shape; the quantity, distribution, and development of 164 types of minerals with identified reserves have been fully mapped; the national forest coverage rate has reached 25.09%, with forest stock volume of 20.988 billion cubic meters; the area of sea under jurisdiction is about 3 million square kilometers, and the retention rate of mainland natural coastline remains above 35%.
Regarding the realization of ecological product value, Tan Rong, a professor at the School of Public Affairs of Zhejiang University, noted that the guideline integrates ecological product value realization into the entire process of natural resource asset management, pushing it from scattered pilots to an institutional system that links protection, reserves, allocation, revenue, and supervision. He said that realizing the value of ecological products from natural resource assets is not simply about putting a price on “green waters and green mountains” or pushing resources into the market, but about safeguarding natural ecology while activating the momentum of resource assets in the process of Chinese modernization characterized by harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, so that the people can share in ecological benefits. Lishui in Zhejiang Province has developed ecological tourism based on terraced fields, wetlands, villages, and farming culture, forming a cycle where tourism revenue feeds back into protection and restoration.